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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

It seems that our entire library staff (myself, Mrs. Misti Bell, Mr. Ray Borel, and Mrs. Peggy Schaeffer) are constantly asking, "what if?" We have had success with student led lunch programming and student led classroom collaborations over the past two years. At the first of this year, our big question was "What if we invited student leaders to present about the power of student led presentations with us at the annual Arkansas Association of Instructional Media Conference (AAIM)?" The more Mrs. Bell and I thought about it, the more we liked the possibility. Our administrators also thought it was a great idea! We decided to make this one of our professional goals for the 2014-2015 school year.

It was difficult to decide which programs to highlight, but we finally decided on seven. We picked student led sessions on Linux, Show your Talent, Black History Month on Martin Luther King, Jr & Michael Jackson, 3D Printing, Teach The Teacher, Sophomore Shakespeare Day, Sophomore Africa Day, and Book Clubs.

We prepared by creating a Prezi, and we shared the outline with the student leaders we selected. We wanted each student leader to be sure to share the following points:

I. What they did in their program
II. How it affected their peers
III. How it affected them personally
IV. Tell why they recommend student led programming

We practiced in the library right before spring break.

The AAIM Conference began right at the end of our spring break, so we made sure to get the students together for a practice session before vacation started! Our practice session went great. All of the students had wonderful responses to all of the points we had prompted them to cover in their presentations. We merely coached them on basic public speaking techniques and explained the type of crowd they would be addressing (teachers, library media specialists, technology coordinators, and administrators from around the state of Arkansas).

The big day finally rolled around, and we made sure to get to the presentation area an hour early. I wanted to make sure all of our technology worked correctly and also give the students a chance to get used to the room. We had plenty of time for a practice run! As an added bonus, one of our 2014 graduates showed up to present with us! He was one of our first student leaders in a collaborative program last year. It was so great to have a Lakeside graduate take his own time to come present with the other students! Yet another testament of what can happen when we empower students!

The actual presentations went great! All of the student presenters performed like professionals! Go here to view the "Students Taking The Lead" Prezi. We had several educators come up and meet the students at the end of the session. It was a great day!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Recently, the PARCC test has been a strain on our school in both personnel requirements and technology resources. I have been serving as a test administrator for the past two weeks. This will continue with few breaks from March 9-May 22nd! All of our teachers and students feel the stress of the end of the year. Testing always adds to this! Since we aren't one to one with devices at our school, we have had to use all available computer labs to test our large population of grades 8-10. If you feel similar stresses in your school role, I would like to offer some ideas to stay positive while testing during the last part of the school year.

A recent infrastructure test & training session in the library

1. Remember you are important to the function of the school even when testing. There is a reason you have been selected to help administer exams. It's because you make a difference! It's also due to the fact that school leadership knows you do a good job.

2. If you have a long stretch of testing, try not to look at the full testing window. Instead, take it day by day. I get overwhelmed if I think about 6-7 weeks of testing in addition to my regular responsibilities. I like to think minute by minute and day by day.

3. Give yourself short term rewards. This advice comes from one of my co-workers! Look forward to a special lunch or taking your spouse out to eat on a certain evening during a busy test week.

4. Remember that students need your help. Even though administering a test might not be what you "signed up for", this is still a great opportunity to help students. I enjoy helping them with procedures and tech issues during testing. If you stay positive, it will be contagious.

5. Get rest. A rested body can deal with the requirements of testing better than one that fights fatigue.

6. People may look to you to see how to respond. You are probably a natural leader in your building, especially if you are a teacher librarian or technology specialist. If you have a bad attitude, it will catch on. Great attitudes catch on too. Read motivational quotes during these stressful periods. It will make a difference!

This is a quote I found on brainyquote.com:

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome."- William James

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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

This school year, I have become hopelessly addicted to Twitter! As a result of Twitter education chats, I have gained many new connections in the education field. It has changed the way I think about learning and communicating professionally. I am constantly trying to think of new ways to model good social media behavior for our learning community.

Recently, the PARCC test has been a strain on our school in both personnel requirements and technology resources. I have been serving as a test administrator for the past two weeks and have been unable to plan any engaging library programming... until two days ago.

I decided that we should try to Tweet successful people on Twitter for inspiration! I took requests from students, teachers, and administrators after PARCC test sessions. I took these lists home and started Tweeting at night. The lists included actors, singers, authors, athletes, news anchors, and more. I Tweeted around 20 people wondering if I would get a response... The Tweets looked like this:

I tweeted out the above example last night at 7:41 PM. This morning as I was driving to our school campus, my Twitter notification went off. I looked at the phone after I parked, and this Tweet had arrived!

Mr. Johnson had Tweeted a great quote for our students. "Interesting how the harder you work the luckier you get!" I couldn't wait to get inside to share this with teachers and students! The normal drudgery of testing and the last nine weeks of school just got brighter as I shared the wisdom of the great coach! We had used Twitter for something other than selfies or boasting... we had used it for communication outside of our school walls. A communication with a celebrity who shared a very effective sentence with the Lakeside learning community.

The day before we heard from these individuals: T.A. Barron (author), Diana Falzone (FOX News, NY), and Jim Lichtenstein (Co-Exec Producer of CBS's The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca). Here are their Tweets:

Now that we have several responses, we plan to create a display of each person's bio and their inspirational Tweet! I'll share this soon on a future post. I'm also going to continue Tweeting different celebs over the next several weeks. I'll continue taking requests from students and teachers! I'm hoping all that see these great examples will realize that social media has great potential in education. We now have access to people and companies that were previously unreachable! We have only scratched the surface of possibilities! Go here for part two of this activity and see how we displayed these Tweets!

Click here to see how we used Twitter during an 8th grade research skills lesson.